President of Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) Aminu Maigari is confident Brazilian fans will adopt Nigeria as their second team at the summer World Cup. The Super Eagles will be returning to Brazil once again, having featured as one of the eight countries that participated at the FIFA Confederations Cup held in the South American country last year.
Maigari said yesterday that the flair of the Nigerian national team combined with the warmth accorded the Eagles at the Confederations Cup will guarantee a strong fan base for the team at the World Cup.
''Brazil is a country that stands out for its established football tradition. The fans will offer us a strong support base at the World Cup because we will play a beautiful and entertaining football that will suit their taste and meet expectations. Recently, the Nigerian Ambassador to Brazil Adamu Emozozo, paid us a homage and gave assurance that the Nigerian delegation will be at home at the World Cup,'' Maigari said.
Though a handful of Nigerian fans will fly across the Atlantic Ocean and cheer the team beginning from their first outing in Group F against Iran in Curitiba on June 16, the extra incentive for the AFCON champions will be to get the locals to be among those rooting for them.
Nigeria is one of the five African nations going to the World Cup, but the sheer weight of public expectation will be on coach Stephen Keshi and his team given that Brazil 2014 will mark the fifth appearance of the Eagles at the World Cup coupled with their status as the current holders of the AFCON title.
Mindful of the high expectations, Maigari predicted an unprecedented outing for the Nigeria in Brazil, vowing that the team wants to surpass their modest feats of 1994 and 1998 where they reached the round of 16.
The Eagles have alarmingly gone a stretch of eight matches without a win at the Wolrd Cup since they beat Bulgaria 1-0 in Paris at France '98 and could not progress beyond the group stage at the 2002 and 2010 editions.
''Something just tells me that this campaign (Brazil 2014) will be our best ever and the turning point in our football history. We want to set a record and accomplish a feat that has not been done before. And this explains why we want the coach to pick the best 23 players which every Nigerian will be proud of''.
Meanwhile, a former Super Eagles’ striker, Mike Obiku, has said that Nigeria could surprise pundits at the World Cup in Brazil pointing out that most of the teams are at the same level.
He said: “The good thing is that we qualified for the World Cup and that we also have a good coach. In the World Cup, you never know, but I think we can make the second round.
“In the game against Argentina, anything can happen and I really feel that we are better than Bosnia.
“But everything will depend on how the players apply themselves.”
Obiku, who is the head coach of Feyenoord Rotherdam Academy, yesterday in Lagos praised Eagles gaffer, Stephen Keshi, for his innovative coaching that has returned Nigeria to the summit of African football.
The former Flash Flamingoes of Benin forward said he was surprised to see some coaches using the same method players of his era were subjected to about 30 years ago, arguing that “you don’t have to kill the player to get the best out of him.”
Obiku who is in Lagos as one of the coaches training the players and coaches in the semi finals of the 2014 NNPC/Shell Cup, which final holds on Sunday at the Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos.
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